Journey North Signs of Spring

Current Headlines: February 7, 2003
Oldest Known Gray Jay

Manuel Martinez holds the oldest known Gray Jay in September, 2002. Photo by Tom Nicholls.

This week we got word of an exciting discovery. The oldest Gray Jay ever to be banded is going to turn 18 years old this spring!

How do we know this? On August 16, 1985, three banders named Tom Nicholls, Leanne Egeland, and the late Frank Hawksworth captured and banded a young Gray Jay in the Fraser Experimental Forest in Colorado. How did they know how old it was when it was first caught? Banders look at several clues to figure out if a Gray Jay is a "hatch year" bird or an "after hatch year" (adult) bird:

Baby jays and crows have pinkish red mouth linings. During their first spring and summer, the roof of most Gray Jay mouths remain pale or pink. The mouth eventually turns black , usually during the late fall or winter, and remains black for life. This is a tricky characteristic, though, because some Gray Jay mouths turn black early, and some don't change for over a year.
A young Gray Jay's tail feathers are tapered, so each feather has a nice even rounded tip. An adult Gray Jay's tail feathers each end in a more blunt, almost squarish tip.
A young Gray Jay has smoky black plumage, which changes in late summer or early autumn to the normal adult color. But a few smoky feathers usually remain in the forehead area during the fall.
Banders peek at the Gray Jay's skull through its thin skin. If the skull is mostly soft and pinkish, the bird was hatched that year. If it's harder and grayish or whitish, it's an adult.


This Gray Jay is a "hatch year" bird. It still has some of its "baby feathers"--those dusky marks on its forehead.	This Gray Jay is an "after hatch year" bird (an adult). It has lost all of its"baby feathers" so its forehead is pure white.
Photos by Tom Nicholls

Using clues like this, they knew the jay had been hatched in the spring of 1985.

These banders have caught the same bird four more times, on:

September 8, 1998
September 10, 1999
September 8 2000
August 30, 2002

When they caught the bird last August, bander Tom Nicholls noted that it was in great health, "and doesn't look any grayer now than it did the day it was first banded." Dr. Nicholls notes that the bird's weight has stayed fairly constant, between 65 and 73 grams, each time it was caught. Assuming the bird survived this past winter, it's about to turn 18 years old. Imagine living so many years in the wilds of the Colorado mountains, where the temperatures drop to 30 below zero in winter. And this bird is out there, naked as a jaybird!

US Geological Survey Certificate for Oldest Gray Jay. Click on photo to see it full sized.

When the banders sent in their banding report the last time, the United States Geological Survey's bird-banding laboratory discovered that this was the oldest banded jay ever found. Before this bird was banded, the oldest Gray Jay known was 15 years, 5 months old. Could this bird have already been the record-holder? Look at the banding dates and see if it's possible.

What are other "oldest bird" records? You can see these records at:

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Longevity Records

Try This! Analyze Banding Data
How old are other Gray Jays Dr. Nicholls and his associates have banded at the Fraser Experimental Forest? Which age group has the most? Dr. Nicholls is working on a longevity chart for his 2002 progress report. Here are his data figures:

Minimum Age	Number of Gray Jays
0	159
1	166
2	59
3	27
4	29
5	28
6	9
7	10
8	13
9	7
10	5
11	3
12	4
13	1
14	0
15	1
16	0
17	1
Total	522

Why are there so many 1-year-old birds? Banders look at the clues we mentioned above to figure out if the bird was hatched that year. But if the bird is an adult, they only know how old it is IF it had been banded earlier. Otherwise, they say its minimum age is 1, but don't know the exact age. When you look at the data, you can easily see that there is a big drop-off in numbers after 1 year. Part of this is because the first year or two of a bird's life is the most treacherous, as the bird learns how to deal with hawks and other predators, how to survive winter, how to avoid automobiles and picture windows and other dangers. Sometimes making just one mistake marks the end.

But there are other reasons why the number drops off. After staying with its parents for the first year (and sometimes the second), a Gray Jay will go off and establish its own territory. Sometimes this bird moves beyond where banders are doing their research. So just because only one 17-year-old bird has been recorded doesn't mean there aren't others that old, or even older!

This Gray Jay is being weighed. Is it an adult or a "hatch year" bird?
Photo by Tom Nicholls

Researcher Tip! Fun with Gray Jay Weights
Tom Nicholls writes, "Sometimes bird banding researchers come up with the strangest information. For example, during the 21- year history of our gray jay study on the Fraser Experimental Forest in CO, 522 individual gray jays have been banded plus 9 not banded making a total of 531 gray jays captured and released. The average weight of these birds is about 70 grams. When one figures out the total weight of these birds it equals 37170 grams, or 1301 ounces, or 81 pounds of gray jay biomass.

"During the 21- year study period, 1727 gray jays (new and retraps) have been removed from mist nets on the Fraser Forest. The weight of those birds totaled 120820 grams, or 4228.7 ounces, or 264 pounds. Any way you weigh it, that is a lot of gray jay! Now we wonder how much of that total weight was in feathers. There might be some young researchers out there that might want to tackle this research question, for feathers are critical for flight and body warmth, among other things? Unlike many bird species, gray jay feathers are constructed like owl feathers allowing these birds to fly silently through woods and fields."